


not upon regret

by MementoMoriPontifexMortis



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Post-Season/Series 06 Finale, also everyone tagged gets at least a line in the story, also the author uses the tags here like she does on tumblr, anti captain swan, anti season 6 finale, balefire with magic!!!, because i am a smol bean who don't like getting hate, because i don't want those people who do ship it, but since this is a bit of an anti fic, i decided not to be a douche and tag them, not that well, there are other ships in this, to find it and yell at me for tagging it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-10
Updated: 2017-09-10
Packaged: 2018-12-26 05:34:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12052386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MementoMoriPontifexMortis/pseuds/MementoMoriPontifexMortis
Summary: AU. A fix it for the entire ending because real life is full of regrets and that ending has got to be someone’s.





	not upon regret

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TinyTeddy878](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TinyTeddy878/gifts).



> So this is has C$ but it's literally background and portrayed in a bad light. I think at some point I was going to break them up and end this with swanfire but like I don't have time for that right now so this is what everyone gets. 
> 
> comment and kudos and find me at baelfirecassidy on tumblr. 
> 
> Build on resolve, and not upon regret,  
> The structure of thy future.  
> Do not grope among the shadows of old sins, but let  
> Thine own soul’s light shine on the path of hope  
> And dissipate the darkness.  
> Waste no tears upon the blotted record of lost years,  
> But turn the leaf, and smile, oh! smile, to see  
> The fair white pages that remain for thee.  
> .  
> Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Him being back brought back the regrets she promised herself she had forgiven herself for. Emma takes one look at him and all the emotions she felt the last time she had saw really him – dying, in her arms, while she sat in the leaves that were scattered across the forest floor – came roaring back to life, threatening to swallow her alive. So she stopped looking at him and for him and towards him and just goes on her happy life with Killian. The only time they interact is when she needs to go to his father for some information on the big bad of the week because yeah, defeating the Black Fairy did not stop her from having to deal with little upstarts. 

And that was her life for the first six months of him coming back to life. Emma focused on her life with Killian and teaching him the ropes he’d need to know as he became the deputy of Storybrooke; Henry appeared sometimes, but even she knew she was neglecting him while he spent time with Regina. She assumed he was spending some time with Neal, but she wasn’t exactly positive and she didn’t have the heart to ask, not sure if she would like either answers. She visited her parents at the farmhouse, spent time with her little brother and ignore the fact that her once upon a time lover had come back to life. 

But then Henry had gotten hurt and they had stormed into the library where Rumpelstiltskin and his family was having picnic lunch in the mostly unused kids section of the library and she watched as Rumpelstiltskin sent Neal – Bae, he started going by Bae and no longer responded to Neal – and Gideon to play a little ways away. He was a natural with his brother, better than she was with her own and she had trouble keeping her eyes from straying to look at him even as Killian grabbed her hand. 

“Bae.” Rumpelstiltskin said, cutting her out of her own thoughts. Bae looked up, his brown eyes shining as Gideon laughed happily, clapping. 

“Yeah, Papa?” Bae, Gideon in tow, came closer, still keeping his smile on his face as he held his brother perfectly, coming to a complete stop right next to Belle. The dark haired beauty took back her baby and gave Bae a kiss on the cheek, leaving Emma to feel a bit jealous. She knew she didn’t have to be, Belle was extremely happy with Rumpelstiltskin and she knew that Bae saw her as a step mother. 

“Young Mister Mills-” When did Rumpelstiltskin stop calling Henry by his name? When had it gone back to calling his grandson by his last name? She wondered. “has become a target of the man they are hunting and seeing as we were just going over this, I was wondering if you might want to help your old man out on casting the protection spells?” 

Well that sure brought a surprised gasp bubbling out of her lips, she hadn’t known he had any magic. She didn’t voice any of her thoughts though, she didn’t ask any questions, didn’t even tilt an eyebrow in surprised – which she was very proud of herself for not doing – and just let the two of them talk. Regina cut into their conversation though with a sharp, “I’m not letting your son try his hand at magic to protect mine.” and Emma forced herself not to respond to it. 

“My son is very adept at magic, Madam Mayor,” Rumpelstiltskin snarled and she finally got the answer to all her unanswered questioned. Henry had not been by to see Neal – Bae – at any point after his resurrection and as such, the one connection they all had, the one connection that had made them family, had been shattered. 

“I can protect my son, Regina,” Bae added, “Even if I don’t see him, I can still protect him.” 

Regina said nothing but seemingly acquiesced to him helping with the protection spells because she turned on her heel right as Ne- Bae lifted a hand and magic filled the room, lifting them from the ground and taking them to Henry’s room in Regina’s house. Emma watched as the dark blue smoke disappeared and Bae moved to help his father with the magic as Regina fumed. 

“You could’ve warned some people,” She argued, the words coming out somehow as her teeth were clenched tightly. 

Bae shrugged, not even turning to look at her as he continued. Her parents moved out of the room, standing in the hallway as they felt useless and Emma was tempted to follow them. But Killian’s hand in hers stopped her.

“When did you get so good at this?” Her pirate asked the boy who would’ve been something akin to his step son. “Last I knew, Bae, you still hated magic.” 

“It’s Baelfire, for one. Only family gets to call me Bae and I grew up, Killian. It happens after one dies and comes back from the vault of the Dark Ones,” he answered, the words coming out tightly. His anger was barely present in his words but Emma had known him for long enough to know when he was getting annoyed. 

“Baelfire...” Killian frowned, “We are family. I loved your mother as if she was my wife -” 

“Funny enough, she never was.” Baelfire gave her True Love a look and then added, “I’m busy, can you shush?” 

Killian seemed chastised and so bowed out of the room, leaving her and Regina with Rumple and Baelfire – and that was one reason she only used pronouns to refer to him whenever she thought about him because to her, he would always be Neal and to call him Baelfire was hard. Regina did nothing besides stand their, her arms crossed, ranting to Rumple about why she couldn’t be the one to help cast the spells, that her love for her son had turned her to light magic and that she could help and Emma wished that she would speak up. But she didn’t.

They moved onto the other places Henry slept at, repeating the same spells, before leaving them to their own. For a quick second, it looked like Neal – Bae – was going to say something to her, but he didn’t and so when they left, never a word leaving either of their lips towards each other, Emma felt a sense of...emptiness at the action. She didn’t claim to know why but she was sure it had to do with her son’s father. 

She listened as the others talked, things that Belle had managed to find about their bad guy being brought up while she thought on Neal – Bae! She reminded herself once more. She’d have to start remembering that – and everything. She felt immediate sadness at the thought that Henry had stopped visiting his father and she knew that Neal – Bae – was heartbroken over it too. He always wanted to get to know Henry better but his death had come so quickly after everything else and so they never got to have that time together that she had hoped they would. 

She would have to talk to Henry about it. When he came back, she was hoping Henry would spend more time with him, getting back the time that all the evils of the world had stolen from them, but apparently, there was no bonding about that. Steeling herself, she excused herself from the conversation, admitting that she wanted to talk to Henry in private. She gave her parents kisses on the cheek before giving Killian a kiss and leaving, taking the yellow bug to the school parking lot. 

She texted Henry so he’d know to meet her when his classes ended and then she settled in to wait. She’d have a half hour of time to herself for which she planned to use to prepare herself for the conversation she was planning. She had not talked about Neal – Bae – since he came back and she had promised herself that she wasn’t going to but this little thing that Henry was doing meant that she had to cut in. She didn’t want Neal – Bae! - thinking that she and Killian had somehow poisoned their son against him. 

She could never do something like that. To her, Neal – again, self, it was Bae! – was a hero. He saved the whole town, saved her family and she would never forget that. She had hoped that nobody else would forget it too, but it seemed like they did. 

A knock on her window alerted her that her thoughts had been allowed to go on for longer than thirty minutes and she unlocked the car, motioning for Henry to sit in the passenger seat. “Hey, kid, how’s school?” She couldn’t recall the last time she had asked him that and actually wanted to hear the answer. 

“It’s fine. I’m passing all my classes.” His reply was wary, like he was wondering what she might say next. He knew she had been worried about him when Regina called her this morning before school had started and told her that someone had attacked him while they were walking to Granny’s but she hadn’t hurried her way over like she normally would’ve before the school bus came and he was deposited in the safe hands of school. 

“How are you?” She asked next, the words coming out slowly. Her son was wary sitting next to her and she couldn’t stand that. It was a sure sign that she sucked as a parent. 

Henry gave her a brief smile, “I’m fine, no damage done by the unnamed sorcerer.” He even lifted his hands as if to show that he was injured. 

She smiled at him and his words. “I’m glad, Henry. I was really this morning. I’m sorry I didn’t make it out to make sure you weren’t hurt earlier but -” She cut herself off. There was no excuse. Her and Killian just hadn’t wanted to get out of bed after the night they had and she let herself been coerced in staying in bed despite the fact that her kid had been attacked. She was a horrible parent. 

“No, it’s fine.” Henry was saying and she knew that it was a lie. It wasn’t okay. It wouldn’t be okay no matter how many times her kid said it. 

She cut him off, “No, Henry it wasn’t.” And this was how she found her opening. “Just like ignoring your dad isn’t okay.” 

Silence filled the car and she waited for him to say something, anything before she continued. “I’m just saying, Henry, your dad coming back is a miracle, a true gift and you’re squandering it by ignoring it. I know it’s hurting him and it can’t be doing good for you.” 

“Mom.” Henry’s words stopped her from talking and she turned to look at him, unaware that she had turned from him during her speech. “I’m not-. I’m don’t want to get close to him again just for him to get taken. I’m protecting myself, like you are.” 

Her heart broke. “Henry.” 

“No, I talked with Neal -” The omission of calling him dad broke it even further. “and he actually agrees. It’s dangerous to get close to him, he doesn’t have the best track list of being alive for so long and he doesn’t want me to get hurt anymore. It’s for the best. He agrees.” 

The way Henry said those last words, soft and childlike, reminded Emma of the fact that her kid was just that, still a kid and that he didn’t need to have all the walls that she had. He didn’t need to create such a wall around his heart like the one around hers that only one person had ever broke it down long enough to get a spot in her heart. 

“It’s not for the best.” She said, “You’re not protecting yourself, you’re hiding yourself. Trust me, kid, I’ve been there and I’ve done that and it never really works.” And if she was being honest, she was still doing that. Even after that big hoe-down that consisted of the final battle and her wedding, she still had secrets and walls up that she didn’t let other people see. “You’re going to regret not getting close to your dad and that side of the family.” 

“Maybe, but if he does die, it’ll hurt less,” was Henry’s impassioned reply. She didn’t get to say anything else because he exited the car, saying he’d call her when he got back to Regina’s place and a whole slew of common curtsy things that she knew he was only saying because it was expected of him. 

She stayed in the car though, memories of her and Neal – Bae – invading her mind as she sat. She knew her son would regret it. She regretted it. She regretted not getting coffee with him that day and she regretted moving on from him so quickly. She regretted a ton of stuff when it came to her ex and she didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know how to fix anything. She had been the Savior and that was nothing more than a fancy title given to her to mark her to die, yet she hadn’t and so she expected that she would be allowed to have her fairy tale ending with no problems. 

Sighing, she turned the Bug on and made her through town. She would have to fix this and she would start by talking to Neal – Bae – and getting it through his head that he couldn’t let the relationship he deserved with Henry go because their son was being stubborn like her. 

The drive was uneventful, unfortunately. She kept hoping that she’d get some kind of disturbance call before she would stop that train of thought for a little, picking it up seconds later when she remembered what she was doing. She knew that Bae – finally! She would fist bump later – had been helping around the pawn shop, Ruby had told her after coming back from Oz, some fight between her and Dorthy bringing her back. 

If she thought on it long enough, Emma would remember what that conversation was about - “I can’t fall in love over the period of twenty four hours and I realized that after I realized that me and Dorthy has nothing in common. We decided that we’d stay friends after we both gave each other some time to cool off, but I can’t believe I was dumb enough to fall for True Love Kiss. I guess it goes to show that sometimes, True Love isn’t what it’s supposed to be. Sometimes you should base your relationships around something else; like actual chemistry and friendship that’s a little stronger than a full days worth.” - but Emma wouldn’t. She didn’t like thinking on the words that Ruby had said as she stomped back into their lives. 

Stopping in front of the pawn shop, Emma hesitated before she remembered that she was doing this for Henry. She was doing this for her neglected son, the one who she left only to his other mother and who took second fiddle to her husband. She was doing this because he deserved to have a father figure in his life and no matter how much Killian fooled himself, he was not a father figure she wanted her son emulating. She opened the door, the bell above ringing and alerting the occupants of her presence. She wanted to hide, run away as quickly as possible but that wasn’t possible as Bae walked out, a smile on his face as he finished speaking to whoever was behind the curtain. It was probably his father. 

His smile though, fell as he caught sight of her. “Hey.” It took him a second before he shook his head, “I mean, can I help you, Mrs. Jones?” 

His tone was cold, just in a way that was barely perceptible, but she caught it and it made everything she was going to say catch in her throat. For a second, she wasn’t even sure why she had showed up anymore. All she wanted was to turn around a leave, just disappear from his sight so that he’d never frown again, never look at her the way he was. She wanted him to look at her like he used to but that was never going to happen, not with how she had acted when he was brought back and sure as hell not as how Henry acted. 

Squaring her shoulders, she walked to the counter, putting her hands on it in a way to symbolize her putting her cards out. “I wanted to talk about Henry.” Emma couldn’t let any of her fears get to her. It didn’t matter her feelings anymore, it stopped being about her when her crappy parenting put her son in danger of losing a relationship that would mean so much to him later on in his life. 

“The wards and spells should hold.” He said, confused by her words. He stood behind the counter, his stance defensive. He was scared of her, scared of this conversation and she could take small comfort in that. He was never so defensive with her, not even when they first met. He never needed to be, he had told her that himself. Yet now, after so much happening, he did. 

“It’s not about that.” She replied, “It’s about you and Henry not hanging out.” 

Bae chuckled, but it wasn’t a nice one. It was a cold and heart broken one, “He made his choice, I’m not going to force him to hang out with me when he’s scared he’s going to lose me again.”

“So you’re fine not seeing your son?” She asked, confused. “Come on, both me and you know that’s a lie.” 

He shook his head, “I’m not okay with it, but what can I do? It’s his choice and I’m going to respect that. He’s old enough now to make the choice about if he wants to spend time with me or not and he’s made it.” Bae’s voice broke a little. “Please respect it as well.” 

“Neal-” 

“It’s Baelfire.” 

“I know, I just.” She paused, catching all the thoughts that were leaving her as she stood around him. “I want you to be happy. You deserve it after all you’ve done for this town.” 

Another humorless laugh left his lips and he gave her a bitter lopsided smile. “Yeah, well it doesn’t seem to be getting me far. Just like my dad’s sacrifice.” He closed his eyes and she wasn’t sure what he was seeing, probably memories of the hell hole he had been stuck in for over three years, before he opened them. “Anyway if that’s all you want to talk about, then this conversation is over. I gotta get back to work.” 

He turned and she, desperately, shouted, “Wait!” She wasn’t sure why. Her desperation to leave from earlier was still nipping at her heels but there was something else, something deeper. “Grab a cup of coffee with me sometime? To make up for the one we never got?” 

“That wouldn’t be a good idea, Emma.” The way he said her name brought a hitch to her breathing and she felt herself going back to those memories of them as kids, back before everything went wrong and the world turned on edge. “You’re a married woman, what would the people say?” His tone had taken on a mocking lilt, something similar to the one his father used and she shook her head. 

“Two old friends having coffee is not something that would make the front page, Baelfire.” She gave him her best puppy dog eyes, knowing that they couldn’t compare to his. “Come on, I missed the one that you offered to take me on, so it’s only fair that we actually try to get that coffee together.” 

She knew she shouldn’t, knew that even if Killian wouldn’t get jealous – and she knew he wouldn’t because he constantly asked her if she had talked to him, asked if they were talking yet – it was a bad idea but she didn’t care. “Please.” She added. 

“We’ll see.” He said, “I go to Granny’s every morning so if you’re there and having coffee, then I guess we can share a booth.” 

“Okay.” She turned herself, a smile growing on her face. 

Six months ago, she never would’ve willingly asked to meet him, but now, now she knew it was wrong of her to ignore him so.


End file.
